Mayor Rob Ford traveled to the Niagara region for a weekend away from the battle but instead found himself right in the middle of one.

“It was chaos,” the mayor said of a scene of a football game in St. Catharines. “It was an all-out brawl.”

You could hear the emotion in his voice as he talked of the incident. He said it shook him up.

The fight broke out right at the end of the game while Ford was standing on the sidelines waiting to go out and present awards.

“When the quarterback kneeled down for the last play of the game all hell broke loose. Emotions were running high,” he said. “It was really heated. It was no one’s fault but they definitely lose control of it.”

He said it was more in the mindset as a football coach that he jumped into try to stop it from getting further out of hand.

“I couldn’t just stand there and let the players in football gear beat each other up,” he said. “I didn’t want to see any of the kids get hurt. Some of the players

were 300 pounds.”

I teased him that perhaps it will be reported as “Mayor Ford in fight” and he laughed for a second then said it was actually a serious situation.

“These kids could have a future in football or it could be their last game,” he said. “We just didn’t want anybody hurt.”

He said there were many quick thinking people, parents, coaches, fans and referees, who tried to calm it down.

“A bunch of people went out there to try to do their best to break it up,” he said.

It was the end of a long day for Ford who was subject of a Toronto Star report suggesting he and his associates are being probed by police.

It was also just a couple of days after he was on a salmon boat in the Great Ontario Salmon Derby and put a protective tackle around Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion to help prevent her from being a falling victim thanks to the strength of a fast-diving 16-pound salmon.

But back in Toronto, the allegations keep mounting.

For the first time, a Toronto Star report indicates from sources police are probing Ford and those close to him. Toronto Police are not commenting on it.

Ford himself called the story suggesting his friend Sandro Lisi supplied drugs as “a total bunch of B.S.”

From his Niagara Falls hotel room over the phone, he said, the story is “not accurate” and that Lisi is a “great guy and he is straight as an arrow.”

He said the reports of Lisi’s involvement with shepherding the mayor around are also exaggerated.

It’s unknown if he is going to make it back to the CNE in time to do his 1 p.m. radio show on Newstalk 1010 but his councillor brother Doug said he is going to try.

The mayor did not tip his hand either way.

“I am enjoying being down in Niagara for the weekend for a little quality time with the wife and kids,” he said.